Retailers: Salesforce Will Now Send A Free Team of Experts To Match Its Marketing Cloud To Your Needs

The new Strategic Framework for Retail Customer Journeys includes a set of retailer-focused analysis and marketing tools.

Salesforce is now offering a free team of experts to meet with retailers and set up a plan for how its Marketing Cloud can be utilized for their needs.

The new Strategic Framework for Retail Customer Journeys, which was announced earlier this week at the National Retail Federation Big Show in New York City, includes a new set of tools the consultants can use to conduct the assessment and recommendations for a retailer of any size.

These include path-to-value analysis, retail-specific email and mobile marketing templates, personalization best practices and toolkits for retail sub-verticals, like furniture, apparel/accessories and groceries/drugs. The retailer could be a current or prospective Marketing Cloud customer.

Meghann York, Marketing Cloud’s director of product marketing, told me that the consultants were specialists in the retail industry, as well as in marketing technology.

If desired, a retailer can request a second phase of consultants from Salesforce’s new Strategic Retail Professional Services, so that they can help to implement the recommendations. This phase, however, comes with a price tag.

As an example use case, York pointed to furniture retailer Room & Board.

“A lot of brick-and-mortar retailers are trying to replicate the in-store experience online,” she noted, adding that Room & Board wanted to bring their in-store design advice to their web site.

After their analysis, the Salesforce Strategic Framework consultants recommended that the Marketing Cloud’s predictive intelligence be used to target which online customers might be most receptive to design advice — a move that York reported was successful.

Retailers are the first industry for Salesforce’s Strategic Framework consultants and related Professional Services, York said. But she reported that “we have had a lot of success with retailers already,” so a similar effort might eventually be offered for other verticals.

About The Author

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.